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An Encounter with the Now Deceased Dr. Stephen H. Webb

Stephen H. Webb, the Catholic Theologian and Philosopher who taught at Wabash College, has passed away last Saturday rather unexpectedly.

Stephen H. Webb

To me, Stephen was a great man and opened my eyes to many things concerning Christ and His Everlasting Gospel. When I first met him, he gave a talk at the August 2015 FAIR Mormon conference. I was very surprised at the degree of knowledge he had obtained throughout his life.

Later that day I caught him in the lounge of the conference and asked him a few questions and expressed my doubts concerning the existence of God. He had such a happy demeanor and spoke highly of Mormonism. I told him I, for a short time, was once an agnostic atheist and told him I was doing a lot of searching for God when I finally decided to read the Book of Mormon for the first time. I told him-sort of-my life story and how I became such a devout Mormon, even though I still have doubts and what not.

He seemed to be impressed and asked me what I was planning on doing when I became older. I told him I was thinking of doing something intellectual and told him about my love for African American history. I expressed concern about the long stance the the Church had on race and the priesthood before 1978. He told me that, although it was common among Americans to have prejudiced attitudes, that I should feel bothered about it and then continued to explain that had I been completely ok with it then I would be in error. I had never looked at it this way. He explained that one of the beautiful things about Mormonism is that God still provides revelation and that God’s prophets sometimes commit dire sin. Although this idea was likely well established among many LDS homes, being a convert, I had always imagined that prophets were supposed to be near perfect. He then told me how Christ helps people-even prophets-who aren’t perfect.

After we talked for some 30 minutes, I later bought two books authored by him (I am thankful now I decided to buy both of these) and asked him to sign them.

I bear solemn testimony that Stephen is a man of God and that he is with our Savior and Redeemer. Although I was counting on seeing him this weekend in Utah at an Interpreter Conference, I will count again on seeing him in the next life. Amen.

I took the time to collect links to a few of his books and article. To see what kind of interesting things he wrote, feel free to take a gander.